Women's Access to Justice Around the World

How many women hold seats in parliaments around the world? Which countries have laws against domestic violence, including marital rape? The flagship report

of the UN's newest agency – UN Women – published on Wednesday, takes a close look at women's legal rights around the world.

The 2011 Progress of the World's Women: In Pursuit of Justice report is a global survey of women's access to justice – looking both at legislation passed by governments and the steps taken (or not taken) to implement those laws. The "paradox" confronted by the report is that despite the recent and rapid expansion of women's legal entitlements, what is written in the statute books does not always translate into real progress on equality and justice on the ground.

The report looks at which countries have passed special legislation on women's political rights and economic opportunities and on women's reproductive health and rights. It looks at which countries have laws against domestic violence, sexual harassment and marital rape. It catalogues data on development indicators related to women, and looks country-by-country at women's participation in politics.

The survey pulls out the case of Rwanda as an example of progress. Rwanda has the world's highest share of women in top decision-making posts: 51% of parliamentarians and half of its supreme court judges are women. According to the report: "The presence of women in parliament has been a pivotal factor in achieving progressive legal reform on land, marriage and inheritance." And beyond pushing through new legislation, the report says Rwanda's women parliamentarians have also played a crucial role in implementing these new laws – taking their male colleagues on nationwide tours to monitor the application of laws and help change attitudes on women's rights.

Some highlights from the report:

• 139 constitutions guarantee gender equality, 117 countries have equal pay laws, and 115 countries guarantee women's equal property rights
• globally, 53% of working women are in vulnerable employment and women are paid up to 30% less than men in some countries
• 125 countries outlaw domestic violence, but 127 countries do not explicitly criminalise rape within marriage
• around the world, 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime and more than 2.6 billion live in countries where marital rape is not a criminal offence
• 61 countries severely restrict women's rights to abortion
• 50 countries have a lower legal age of marriage for women than for men
• Rwanda has the highest share of women in parliament (51%), followed by Sweden (45%). In the UK, only 21% of parliamentarians are women, and in the US that figure is down to 17%
• the first woman elected to parliament was in Finland, in 1907

Boosting the number of legislators who are women is one of the key recommendations of the report and is also a key indicator for the millennium development goal on gender equality. The UN Women report suggests using quotas to increase numbers do so. Of the 28 countries that have reached or exceeded 30% of women's representation in national parliaments, at least 23 have used quotas.

The use of quotas is an increasingly popular idea – one that Glenys Kinnock championed on the Global development site last year. But it's not without its critics. A 2010 bulletin from the Institute of Development Studies, for example, noted that quotas can be more about maintaining the legitimacy of a regime than about women's empowerment. And the assumption that women in parliament promote progressive politics might not hold - women can just as easily reinforce elite agendas, and quotas may disproportionately favour wealthier women.

We've pulled out some of key data from the report, which you can download below. We've included key dates (such as when women got the right to vote, or the right to stand for election), key figures (such as numbers of women parliamentarians, rates of maternal mortality, women's unemployment and the gap between women's and men's wages) and key laws (such as those on abortion and those against domestic violence, sexual harassment, and marital rape).

Data Summary

Women's Legal Rrights Around the World
Country	Year women got the right to vote	Share of women in parliament (%), 2011	Laws against domestic violence	Laws against sexual harassment	Laws against marital rape
".." Indicates that data are not available or that data sources are contradictory "–" indicates where women are not allowed to vote Source: UN Women, Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice, 2011
Afghanistan	1963	28	No	No	No
Albania	1920	16	Yes	Yes	No
Algeria	1962	7	No	Yes	No
Andorra	1970	36	Yes	Yes	No
Angola	1975	39	No	Yes	No
Antigua and Barbuda	1951	19	Yes	No	No
Argentina	1947	38	Yes	Yes	Yes
Armenia	1921	9	No	Yes	No
Australia	1902, 1962	28	Yes	Yes	Yes
Austria	1918	28	Yes	Yes	..
Azerbaijan	1921	16	No	Yes	No
Bahamas	1961, 1964	18	Yes	Yes	No
Bahrain	1973	15	No	No	No
Bangladesh	1972	19	Yes	Yes	No
Barbados	1950	20	Yes	No	No
Belarus	1919	32	No	No	No
Belgium	1919, 1948	38	Yes	Yes	..
Belize	1954	11	Yes	Yes	No
Benin	1956	11	No	Yes	No
Bhutan	1953	14	No	Yes	Yes
Bolivia	1938, 1952	30	Yes	No	No
Bosnia and Herzegovina	1949	16	Yes	Yes	No
Botswana	1965	8	Yes	Yes	No
Brazil	1932	10	Yes	Yes	Yes
Brunei Darussalam	–	..	No	Yes	No
Bulgaria	1944	21	Yes	Yes	No
Burkina Faso	1958	15	No	Yes	No
Burundi	1961	36	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cambodia	1955	19	Yes	Yes	No
Cameroon	1946	14	No	No	No
Canada	1917, 1951	25	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cape Verde	1975	18	Yes	Yes	Yes
Central African Republic	1986	..	Yes	Yes	No
Chad	1958	5	Yes	No	No
Chile	1931, 1949	14	Yes	Yes	Yes
China	1949	21	Yes	Yes	No
Colombia	1954	14	Yes	Yes	Yes
Comoros	1956	3	Yes	Yes	No
Congo	1963	9	No	..	No
Costa Rica	1949	39	Yes	Yes	Yes
Côte d'Ivoire	1952	9	No	Yes	No
Croatia	1945	24	Yes	Yes	..
Cuba	1934	43	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cyprus	1960	13	Yes	Yes	Yes
Czech Republic	1920	21	Yes	Yes	..
Democratic People's Republic of Korea	1946	16	..	..	..
Democratic Republic of the Congo	1967	8	No	Yes	No
Denmark	1915	38	Yes	Yes	Yes
Djibouti	1946	14	No	No	No
Dominica	1951	13	Yes	No	No
Dominican Republic	1942	19	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ecuador	1929, 1967	32	Yes	Yes	No
Egypt	1956	13	Yes	No	No
El Salvador	1939	19	Yes	Yes	No
Equatorial Guinea	1963	10	No	Yes	No
Eritrea	1955	22	No	..	No
Estonia	1918	23	Yes	Yes	No
Ethiopia	1955	26	Yes	..	No
Fiji	1963	..	Yes	Yes	No
Finland	1906	40	Yes	Yes	..
France	1944	20	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gabon	1956	16	No	No	No
Gambia	1960	8	No	Yes	No
Georgia	1918, 1921	7	Yes	No	No
Germany	1918	32	Yes	Yes	No
Ghana	1954	8	Yes	No	No
Greece	1949, 1952	17	Yes	Yes	Yes
Grenada	1951	21	Yes	..	No
Guatemala	1946	12	Yes	No	No
Guinea	1958	..	No	No	No
Guinea-Bissau	1977	10	No	No	..
Guyana	1953	30	Yes	Yes	Yes
Haiti	1950	11	No	No	No
Honduras	1955	18	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hong Kong, China (Special Administrative Region)	..	..	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hungary	1918	9	No	No	No
Iceland	1915, 1920	43	Yes	Yes	Yes
India	1950	11	Yes	Yes	No
Indonesia	1945	18	Yes	No	No
Iran (Islamic Republic of)	1963	3	..	..	..
Iraq	1980	25	No	Yes	No
Ireland	1918, 1928	16	Yes	Yes	Yes
Israel	1948	19	Yes	Yes	..
Italy	1945	20	Yes	Yes	No
Jamaica	1944	16	Yes	No	No
Japan	1945, 1947	14	Yes	No	No
Jordan	1974	12	Yes	No	No
Kazakhstan	1924, 1993	14	Yes	No	No
Kenya	1919, 1963	10	No	Yes	No
Kiribati	1967	4	No	No	No
Kuwait	2005	8	No	No	No
Kyrgyzstan	1918	23	Yes	No	No
Lao People's Democratic Republic	1958	25	Yes	No	No
Latvia	1918	20	Yes	Yes	No
Lebanon	1952	3	No	No	No
Lesotho	1965	23	No	Yes	No
Liberia	1946	14	No	No	..
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	1964	8	No	..	No
Liechtenstein	1984	24	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lithuania	1919	19	No	Yes	No
Luxembourg	1919	20	Yes	Yes	Yes
Madagascar	1959	12	Yes	Yes	No
Malawi	1961	21	Yes	No	No
Malaysia	1957	14	Yes	No	Yes
Maldives	1932	6	No	No	No
Mali	1956	10	No	No	No
Malta	1947	9	Yes	Yes	Yes
Marshall Islands	1979	3	No	No	No
Mauritania	1961	19	No	No	No
Mauritius	1956	19	Yes	Yes	No
Mexico	1947	25	Yes	Yes	Yes
Micronesia (Federated States of)	1979	0	No	No	No
Monaco	1962	26	Yes	..	No
Mongolia	1924	4	Yes	No	No
Montenegro	..	11	Yes	Yes	Yes
Morocco	1963	7	Yes	Yes	No
Mozambique	1975	39	Yes	Yes	No
Myanmar	1935	4	No	..	No
Namibia	1989	25	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nauru	1968	0	No	..	No
Nepal	1951	33	Yes	No	Yes
Netherlands	1919	39	Yes	Yes	No
New Zealand	1893	34	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nicaragua	1955	21	Yes	Yes	Yes
Niger	1948	..	No	Yes	No
Nigeria	1958, 1978	7	No	No	No
Norway	1913	40	Yes	Yes	No
Occupied Palestinian Territory	..	..	No	No	No
Oman	1994, 2003	9	No	No	No
Pakistan	1947	21	No	Yes	No
Palau	1979	7	No	..	No
Panama	1941, 1946	8	Yes	Yes	No
Papua New Guinea	1964	1	No	Yes	No
Paraguay	1961	14	Yes	Yes	..
Peru	1955	28	Yes	Yes	Yes
Philippines	1937	21	Yes	Yes	Yes
Poland	1918	18	Yes	Yes	No
Portugal	1931, 1934, 1976	27	Yes	Yes	Yes
Qatar	..	0	No	..	No
Republic of Korea	1948	15	Yes	Yes	No
Republic of Moldova	1978, 1993	19	Yes	Yes	Yes
Romania	1929, 1946	10	Yes	Yes	Yes
Russian Federation	1918	11	No	Yes	No
Rwanda	1961	51	Yes	Yes	Yes
Saint Kitts and Nevis	1951	7	Yes	No	No
Saint Lucia	1951	21	Yes	Yes	No
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	1951	14	Yes	No	No
Samoa	1948, 1990	8	No	No	No
San Marino	1959	17	Yes	Yes	Yes
São Tomé and Principe	1975	18	Yes	..	..
Saudi Arabia	–	0	No	..	No
Senegal	1945	30	Yes	Yes	No
Serbia	..	22	Yes	Yes	Yes
Seychelles	1948	24	Yes	Yes	..
Sierra Leone	1961	13	Yes	No	No
Singapore	1947	23	Yes	No	No
Slovakia	1920	15	Yes	Yes	Yes
Slovenia	1945	11	Yes	Yes	Yes
Solomon Islands	1974	0	No	No	No
Somalia	1956	7	..	..	..
South Africa	1930, 1984, 1994	43	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spain	1931	34	Yes	Yes	No
Sri Lanka	1931	5	Yes	Yes	No
Sudan	1964	24	No	..	No
Suriname	1948	10	Yes	No	No
Swaziland	1968	22	No	..	No
Sweden	1919, 1921	45	Yes	Yes	Yes
Switzerland	1971	28	Yes	Yes	..
Syrian Arab Republic	1949, 1953	12	No	No	No
Tajikistan	1924	18	No	Yes	No
Thailand	1932	14	Yes	Yes	Yes
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia	1946	33	Yes	No	Yes
Timor-Leste	..	29	Yes	Yes	Yes
Togo	1945	11	No	No	No
Tonga	1960	4	No	..	No
Trinidad and Tobago	1946	27	Yes	No	Yes
Tunisia	1959	23	No	Yes	No
Turkey	1930	9	Yes	Yes	Yes
Turkmenistan	1927	17	No	No	No
Tuvalu	1967	0	No	No	No
Uganda	1962	31	Yes	Yes	No
Ukraine	1919	8	Yes	Yes	No
United Arab Emirates	–	23	No	..	No
United Kingdom	1918, 1928	21	Yes	Yes	No
United Republic of Tanzania	1959	36	No	Yes	No
United States of America	1920	17	Yes	Yes	Yes
Uruguay	1932	15	Yes	Yes	No
Uzbekistan	1938	19	No	No	No
Vanuatu	1975, 1980	4	Yes	No	No
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)	1946	17	Yes	Yes	Yes
Viet Nam	1946	26	Yes	Yes	Yes
Yemen	1967, 1970	1	No	No	No
Zambia	1962	14	No	Yes	No
Zimbabwe	1919, 1957	18	Yes	Yes	Yes

Data Summary

Women's Legal Rrights Around the World